Shakespeare's Measure for Measure Quotes

Here are some of the key quotes to learn and use in any essay about Measure for Measure. They are the most important and well known quotations.

"Let some more test be made of my metal" - Angelo saying this to the Duke. The metal refers to coining at the time as the play was a year after James I came to the throne and all the coins has to be redone to have his face on them. This sis his false display of modesty and a reference to how in the 1600s a coin was as valuable as the metal it was made from.

"Man, proud man" " brief authority" "glassy essence" "angry apes" "angels weep" "high heaven" - This is Isabellas's big speech in the play and these are the key quotes. She cries at how Angelo, the leader is too arrogant and caught up in himself to allow Claudio to be freed. She explains how he would make the angels weep in heaven because he does not realise his human fragility and thinks he is so much more than he really is.

An Angelo for Claudio, death for death" - an echo of the Bible's "an eye for an eye" which shows the Duke's wisdom and knowledge over everyone elses.

"Geld and splay" - Low life characters' way of crudeness and bawdyness.